Tracing a recursive method test(15, 4): 15 > 4, so make a recursive call to test(15-4, 4) test(11, 4): 11 > 4, so make a recursive call to test(7, 4) test(7, 4): 7 > 4, so make a recursive call to test(3, 4) test(3, 4): 3 < 4, so we've hit the base case and return 0 test(7, 4): return 1 + 0 = 1 test(11, 4): return 1 + 1 = 2 test(15, 4): return 1 + 2 = 3 The call test(15, 4) returns 3. It is called 4 times, as shown above